The Breath of Knowledge under Historical Violence: A Study of Zhang Ling's Traumatic Writing

Abstract

This paper examines Zhang Ling's Golden Mountain Blues (2009) and The Sands of Time (2016), focusing on the interplay between historical violence and the conditons of knowledge. By analyzing the characters and narratives, it reveals how historical trauma— embodied in scars, death, and disease—shapes the conditions of knowledge and its carriers. The study argues that in Zhang's writing, knowledge assumes a form of "spirituality" that moves transcendentally between history and individual destiny. It further contends that this "breath" of knowledge not only illuminates the entangled dynamics of history and memory in the transnational Chinese experience, but also offers a critical perspective for reassessing the cultural significance of contemporary Chinese literature within a global theoretical horizon.

Keywords

historical violence / knowledge / Zhang Ling / Golden Mountain Blues / The Sands of Time

References

[1] de Spinoza B. (2018). Ethics proved in geometrical order (M. J. Kisner, Ed.; M. Silverthorne & M. J. Kisner, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.

[2] Foucault M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language. A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans. Pantheon Books.

[3] Foucault M. (1989). The Order of Things:An archaeology of the human sciences. Routledge.

[4] Hong Y.R. (2017). The Formation of Sinophobia and the Development of Related Anti-Chinese Research in the United States. Chung Hsing Journal of The Humanities, (59), 191-227, https://www.airitilibrary.com/Article/Detail?DoclD=17278562-201709-201801040018-201801040018-191-227.

[5] Sontag S. (1978). Illness as Metaphor. Farrar Straus&Giroux.

[6] Wang D. D.-w. (2004). The Monster that is History:History, Violence and Fictional Writing in Twentieth Century China. University of California Press.

[7] Xu J.L.(2016). Jiaguo Tianxia:Xiandai Zhongguo De Geren, Guojia Yu Shijie Rentong. [家国天下——现代中国的个人、国家与世界认同: FamilyNation-World: The Identity of Person, Nation and World in Modern China]. Shanghai People Publishing House.

[8] Zhang L. (2009). Jin Shan.[金山: Golden Mountain Blues.] Shiyue Literature and Art Press.

[9] Zhang L. (2016). Liu Nien Wu Yü. [流年物语: The Sands of Time.] Shiyue Literature and Art Press.

[10] Zhang L. (2017). Golden Mountain Blues. N. Harman,Trans. Atlantic Books.

[11] Zhou C. P. (2023). The Writing of Disgust in Ha Jin's A Free Life. Critical Theory, 7(2), 89-102. https://doi.org/10.47297/wspctWSP2515-470208.20230702.